


A Year Without Rain

by bluelinerush27



Category: Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelinerush27/pseuds/bluelinerush27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a while, it feels like time stopped at that very moment. Somehow, it passes anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Year Without Rain

Life changes in not-quite subtle ways, after. 

Just...after. 

There is a calendar held up on the fridge by four magnets that change order on the days when Lilo tugs one of the stools away from the counter and over. Those days are marked off by crayon, or pencil, or marker. 

Other days are blank. Nani doesn't bother to fill them in. 

It turns into a blur of work-school-hula-home. A routine, of sorts. Something to put the normal back in their lives, slowly. 

Nani turns twenty, a few weeks after. Lilo turns six, four days later. 

*********

It feels like time should have stopped, but then, that would take a miracle. 

Nani isn't sure that she still believes in miracles. If they existed, then none of this would have happened. She could wake up and know that wandering down to the kitchen meant finding her mother, with Lilo at her feet, and her father, at the table, reading the paper. 

Now her alarm clock goes off earlier than usual and she swallows down two cups of coffee before Lilo is even awake. Mornings go like this, most of the time. Breakfast, off to school, clean the house, off to work. Sometimes they throw routine out the window on Nani's days off, and Lilo stays home; they pack a basket and Nani's surfboard, make their way to the beach, where they stay until the sun sets. 

Or until it starts to rain. 

They run back home, basket hitting against Lilo's knees, under cover of the surfboard. 

Those are the nights when Nani doesn't sleep. When if she dozes off, it's only for minutes at a time before she jerks awake, thinking that someone is knocking on the door. 

There is never anyone there. Except maybe Lilo, on the nights where thunder rattles the house and lightning casts shadows on the wall. 

Nani makes hot chocolate and they sit at the kitchen table. 

Lilo's feet swing high off the ground. Nani swallows past the lump in her throat that comes when she realizes it'll still be just the two of them by the time Lilo's feet finally touch the floor. 

*********

Work is the same as always: too much hassle and not nearly enough pay to deal with it. 

Nani gets a second job; arranges with their next-door neighbors for them to keep an eye on Lilo when she's not there. Lilo, predictably, resists the change but gives in after a couple of weeks, because there's really not a choice, and they both know it.   
The magnets holding up the calendar change position again. One of them falls and breaks. Somehow, another one appears to replace it. 

Nani doesn't ask. Lilo doesn't say, and sits at the table, feet swinging as she recounts her day in minute detail. 

She tries, Nani knows, to make friends. But there is something about her little sister that makes the other kids stay away. It makes a part of her ache to see; after all, she has her own friends, her co-workers, people she comes across every day to talk to. 

And Lilo, well...

Lilo has a doll that she made herself. Half-filled coloring books and crayons that need replacing (Nani makes a note to pick up a new box the next time she goes to the store). That, and an imagination that could take her anywhere she wanted to go, without actually leaving home. Or even the island. 

One day, she takes Lilo to the library. They stay until right before closing time. Nani gets a new card to replace the one she lost, and they leave with a stack of new books in tow. 

They go out for ice cream, too, even though they haven't eaten dinner (don't get used to it, Nani says, and tries not to laugh at the smudge of chocolate ice cream on Lilo's nose.) 

*********

Lilo's known how to swim for a while, but Nani still worries. 

Every Thursday, without fail, Lilo disappears in the afternoon with a peanut butter sandwich, and comes back soaking wet.

"Pudge was hungry today," Lilo says. 

Nani eyes her in that way that only older siblings can. "Pudge?" 

"Uh-huh." Lilo is standing on a stool at the counter, reaching into one of the cupboards for the peanut butter. 

"Didn't you just eat?" Nani asks. Lilo shakes her head. 

"No," she says. "That one wasn't for me. Can I have the bread?" 

Nani passes her the loaf of bread sitting open near her hand and shakes her head. "No hula today?" 

"Nope," Lilo says, through a mouthful of peanut butter. 

"So," says Nani, "Who is Pudge?" 

"A fish," Lilo says, all seriousness. "He likes peanut butter. And he controls the weather." 

The weather. Nani doesn't say anything to this, because she can't, not past the choked up feeling she gets like she might cry if she tries. And she doesn't think about how the weather's been clear lately, all sun and blue skies, not too hot, not too cold.   
Instead, she reaches out and ruffles Lilo's hair, earning herself a loud protest and a spoonful of peanut butter stuck to her nose.

She could get mad. She laughs instead, because if she doesn't, she isn't sure what she'll do. 

*********

Lilo gets a part in the school play. 

She practices for days on end, every chance she gets. Reciting her lines in different voices, talking Nani into playing the other characters (I can't do it without someone else, Lilo insists). It keeps her busy, while Nani sorts out the household things. Bills that need to be paid, grocery lists that need to be made, progress reports that need to be signed. 

David comes by one afternoon to help Lilo practice. It's funny, Nani thinks, because Lilo hadn't mentioned seeing him, but there he is. All smiles and that ridiculous enthusiasm for everything that kind of makes her want to throw things at him. But then she hears snippets of conversation drifting towards her as she sits at the kitchen table; most of it is Lilo, but every now and then, she hears David, too. 

And then she hears laughter. Real laughter. Not the fakey forced kind that she and Lilo have both gotten into the habit of offering, but honest-to-goodness laughing. 

The way they used to, before. 

After a while, Lilo comes bouncing into the kitchen with a pillowcase tied around her shoulders and a pair of sunglasses slipping down her nose. 

"Can I have a snack?" she asks. Nani nods, wordlessly, and Lilo disappears into the pantry, humming a familiar song to herself.   
David stands in the kitchen doorway, watching. 

"So I was thinking," he says. "You're supposed to work next Friday, yeah?" 

Nani makes a face. She'd forgotten. "Yeah," she says. "What about it?" 

David looks back at her and shrugs. "Trade you shifts," he says, and nods towards the pantry, where Lilo is, still. "You shouldn't miss the play." 

She doesn't. 

*********

Sometimes, Nani thinks about leaving the island. 

They've got extended family elsewhere; most of whom had come for the funeral and then left a few days later. There'd been offers, still-standing ones, for her and Lilo both to come and live in other places. Or for Lilo to come alone. 

Some days, Nani isn't sure why she hasn't taken anyone up on it. But every time she thinks about it, she hears her father's voice in the back of her head. 

Ohana means family. And family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten. 

She thinks she could stand it if they both went. But the island is home and as much as everything has changed over the past few months, she is reluctant to change things further. The idea of sending Lilo away scares her in a way she can't quite admit to, even to herself, because doing so would mean that they'd both be left behind, in one way or another. 

One day, the school calls her in because Lilo knocked Myrtle off the swings and Myrtle fell wrong and broke her wrist. 

They ask her questions that Nani doesn't quite know the answers to, because she's still getting used to being a parent and a sister all in one. And then they tell her, gently, like they mean well, that maybe she's in over her head. 

Nani tells them, without hesitating, that Lilo is hers and she's not going anywhere. 

Nobody knows my sister like I do, she says. And I won't let her go to some place where she won't stand a chance. 

She leaves the office that day angry, but not at Lilo, who doesn't look her in the eye until later, when, ironically, a storm rages over the house and they're sitting in the middle of Nani's bed, painting their toenails. 

"Are we broken?" Lilo asks. 

And Nani, at a loss for words, just shakes her head for a minute before she realizes nail polish is dripping onto the comforter and she sighs. 

"No, baby," she says. "We're not broken." 

*********

They are, though. 

Nani has the feeling that Lilo doesn't tell her everything that goes on at school. The other kids still run away from her on the playground, and after school. Lilo totes around the doll she made and sits in the sandbox making up stories until it's time for hula practice. And even there, it's more of the same. 

In between the rush of school and work and everything else, it's easy for things to slip through the cracks. And when Lilo insists that she is all sright, Nani doesn't know what else to do except believe it. 

It hurts, when she sees it. She tries talking to Lilo about it, but all it ever seems to get her is flat denials that anything is wrong.

You're only six, Nani thinks, but who ever said age had anything to do with growing up? 

They make Thanksgiving dinner together that year. Nani pulls out their mother's recipe box and they pick out their favorites. .  
The results are somewhat of a disaster, in the way that means by the end of the afternoon there's flour in Lilo's hair and jam on Nani's shirt. But it is what it is, and it's a long weekend for both of them, so it's okay. 

Lilo falls asleep curled up in the middle of the couch, watching old home videos. Like they did last year. 

Like they will probably do every year, because it's a tradition, and some things never chance. 

Nani tucks a blanket around her and if she cries watching the last video, there's no one but her to know it. 

*********

Lilo goes through what she calls her 'blue period' sometime in December. 

It'd make sense if winter actually meant cold and lack of sunlight, but they live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, so it really doesn't. 

Then again, Nani thinks, maybe she is just oversimplifying it. It seems more likely than not. But Lilo whiles away the time in her room, drawing whatever she sees in her head on paper held up by the easel that had once been their mother's. Nani watches from the doorway sometimes, and isn't sure whether to be disturbed or amused, or maybe both. 

At some point, Lilo takes to closing the door. Puts up a sign that reads "Kapu" in her childish block letters and Nani is left at a loss. 

Suddenly, it feels like time really has stopped, and they're just stuck here, on a loop. 

She takes to marking the passage of it by Thursdays. By Lilo standing on a stool in the kitchen, reaching for the peanut butter. Insisting that it'll rain if she doesn't deliver the usual sandwich to Pudge, all seriousness, even as she gets jam all over the counter. 

Nani doesn't have the heart to tell her that's not really how things work. 

The magnets on the calendar change again. Nani decides to buy new ones and replaces them. 

Lilo takes the old ones and puts them in a box of trinkets that Nani didn't even know she had. 

*********

Christmas is a quiet affair. 

It's nice out, so they spend the day at the beach. Breakfast and lunch packed up in a basket, blanket spread out over the sand.   
Nani watches Lilo race across it in bare feet and a bright orange bathing suit that probably needs to be replaced (she makes a note to do so as soon as possible). Before long, Lilo's planted herself just short of the water, starting what looks to be a sandcastle. She looks content enough, despite probably knowing that the water, at some point, will come and ruin everything.   
It doesn't seem to matter, though. And sure enough, the water comes and Lilo waits until it retreats again before starting over. 

They open presents that night, a tradition along the same line as Thanksgiving. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. Nani's been hoping that they could make it through without incident, and they do. 

Just quiet. Nothing like the Christmas nights of years past. She pulls out the video camera before Lilo starts tearing into wrapping paper, determined to keep a record the way they always have. 

Some things, Nani tells herself, don't need to change. 

That year, she gives Lilo a camera. The disposable sort, but a camera all the same, with a note that she ends up having to read out loud because Lilo's not quite there yet. 

A picture is worth a thousand words, it says. How many stories can you tell? 

It's sort of a challenge without actually being one. 

It turns into a thing before either of them really notice. 

*********

Before long, there are pictures covering every available surface of Lilo's room. 

Nani goes over household things and sets aside a certain amount to make sure that when the cameras fill up, she can drop them off and have them developed. 

Lilo enters what she calls the "purple period". She tells Nani matter-of-factly that it's not a blue period anymore because she's not as sad as she used to be, but she's still sad. 

And then she asks if that makes any sense. 

Nani wonders when it was that her little sister started picking up on such things. And then it hits her that maybe Lilo knows a lot more than she's letting on and she just doesn't say. It'd be just one more thing to set her apart from the other kids; one more thing for them to pick on her for. 

And really, Nani doesn't blame her for keeping to herself. She'd probably do the same thing. 

She makes dinner while Lilo sorts through her new set of pictures at the table, recounting the moment she took each one. 

"...and I found this in the window!" Lilo says, holding up a picture of a spider that might be as big as her hand. 

Nani jumps when she turns and sees it. "What window?" 

"The upstairs one," says Lilo, like this explains anything. There are multiple windows upstairs. Nani makes a mental note to check them all. 

"It'll probably go away," Lilo says after a moment, when Nani doesn't answer. "Everything goes away, sooner or later." 

Nani turns back to the stove, blinking back sudden tears. "Well, I don't." 

Lilo climbs down from the chair and wanders over to her, reaching up to wrap her arms around Nani's waist in a hug. 

"Me neither." 

*********

The magnets on the calendar switch position. 

January comes and goes, and then February. March means spring break and by then, Nani's quit her second job because the hours suck and she feels like she ought to be home more often. 

She tells herself that she'll figure something out. That surely they can last for a little while on what they still have, and what she's managed to save. 

Lilo continues on with hula practice. Nani ducks in to watch every now and then. Sometimes, she is reminded of herself; other times of their mother. They watch old videos from when Lilo was still a baby and Nani still danced, herself, and Lilo keeps up a running commentary like she always does. 

"How come you don't dance anymore?" she asks. 

Nani sighs. "I don't have time," she says. "Maybe one day I will again." 

Lilo nods, probably more to herself than at Nani. "You should," she says. "It helps." 

Nani wants to ask what Lilo means by this. But she thinks she already knows. So when Lilo yawns and sprawls out over the couch, she says nothing. 

"Back to school in the morning," she says. Lilo makes a face at her. 

"Do I have to?" 

"Yes, you have to." 

"Can I take my camera?" 

"Don't lose it." Nani pauses and looks at the clock. "Wanna go for shave ice?" 

Lilo bounces off the couch. "Last one with their slippers on is a rotten egg!" 

Nani lets her win. In the long run, being a rotten egg is the least of her worries. 

 

*********

The days pass faster after this. 

Schoolwork covers the fridge, replaced every now and then by new things, by pictures or by drawings. Most of it is whatever strikes Lilo's fancy. Buried beneath it are the important things, like bills that Nani has to fish out, school calendars and grocery lists. 

Nani finds another job to replace the one she quit. It works because they don't mind if Lilo comes and sits at one of the tables near the back, so long as she keeps out of trouble. Nani makes sure she's got a backpack full of things to keep her occupied and Lilo, perhaps realizing that they do, in fact, need this, keeps mostly quiet. 

It's not exactly what Nani would have hoped for, but it's better than nothing. 

"Why do you have so many jobs?" Lilo asks one day. 

Nani hands her a plate and a set of silverware. "I only have two," she says. 

"Yeah," says Lilo. "But that's a lot. You didn't used to have two." 

"I know," Nani tells her. "But I do now. Finish all your food, okay?" 

"Okay." Lilo reaches for the glass of juice that Nani had left her with earlier and Nani goes off to see about the table at the other side of her section that's just been filled. 

Later on, when they're home and Lilo's asleep, Nani sits at the kitchen table and cries because it's finally started to settle in that maybe she is in over her head. And maybe she doesn't really know what she's doing and she just keeps telling herself that she does because she's terrfied of what'll happen the minute she admits that she doesn't. 

She ends up calling David, out of the blue, just for someone to talk to. He's the only one that's bothered to keep coming around; sometimes the only one Lilo will talk to when she's in a mood, and right now definitely the only one Nani trusts not to say anything. 

To just listen. And maybe none of what she says makes any sense, but David does just that. 

He tries to tell her that it'll be okay. 

She's not sure she believes that anymore, either. 

*********

One day, Nani decides to clean things out. 

She doesn't tell Lilo what she's doing. Just sends her off to school and tries not to cry when she closes the door because the thought of getting rid of anything hurts. This is their home, this is their family, the place where they grew up and will probably never leave. But everything's been sitting in the same place for so long that it's starting to feel like they'll never get past it.   
So she opens the door to their parents' room with a shaking hand, and has to remind herself to breathe. 

Nothing's changed. Their mother's perfume is still on the dresser next to their father's watch that he almost never took off, but had that afternoon because they hadn't been planning on going anywhere. 

No need, he'd said. We'll just play it by ear. 

Nani opens the closet, looks at her parents' clothes hanging there in neat rows, still. Her father's slippers next to a pair of their mother's running shoes. A toy that Lilo had left in there and long since forgotten about. 

She starts here, first. Keeping what she can't stand the thought of getting rid of; an old shirt of their father's, a dress of their mother's. Some things she keeps with the idea of turning them into new clothes for Lilo; a memento of sorts. Something Lilo can have to keep their parents close to her, like the picture she thinks Nani doesn't know about, tucked underneath her pillow.   
It takes her the morning and part of the afternoon to even get through the closet. She doesn't hear the front door opening or closing; doesn't realize that Lilo is there until she feels little arms wrapping around her shoulders because she's sitting on the floor. 

"Do we have to give it all away?" Lilo asks. "Can I keep something?" 

Nani turns around and hugs her. "You can keep whatever you want," she says. "But not all of it, okay?" 

Lilo nods. "Okay." 

They spend the rest of the day in their parents' bedroom, going through everything. When the skies start going dark, Nani turns on the lights and comes across an old photo album. 

By then, they're mostly done. So they sit in the middle of their parents' bed, looking at all the pictures. Some of them, Lilo doesn't remember. Most of them, Nani does. 

Lilo falls asleep there that night. Nani stays with her, watching the ceiling fan turn lazy circles above them. 

She wonders if it'll ever stop hurting. 

*********

Summer comes in on a storm that has Lilo running into Nani's room in the middle of the night. 

Nani is already awake. She'd known the storm was coming ever since the skies started clouding up right after Lilo went to bed. It'd been Thursday and Lilo, like clockwork, had taken the usual peanut butter sandwich to Pudge (whom Nani has yet to see, but she'll take her sister's word for the fact that the fish exists). 

But the weather is not in their favor tonight. Thunder rattles the house; lightning turns the shadows on the wall into shapes that make Lilo bury her face in Nani's shoulder. 

"I hate storms," Lilo says. 

Nani ruffles her hair. "Me too," she replies. 

"I wish they didn't exist." 

"So do I." 

"I got a smiley face sticker on my worksheet today." 

Nani bites back a laugh. It figures that Lilo would change the subject, and so abruptly, at that. She pulls a flashlight out of her bedside table drawer when the light in the hallway goes out and turns it on. 

"You did?" she says. "Can I see?" 

"It's on the fridge," Lilo tells her. "You can see it in the morning." 

This time, Nani does laugh. Because of course she's not the only one who doesn't want to move from the safety of the bed and all its blankets. Lilo looks up and makes a face at her, but this only makes her laugh harder, and then they're both laughing.   
The sound drowns out the storm. Nani turns the flashlight towards the wall as it calms down and they take turns making shadow animals with their hands until Lilo falls asleep again. 

In the morning, they go down to make breakfast together. Sure enough, Lilo's worksheet is stuck to the fridge by one of their magnets, bright yellow smiley face sticker and all. 

Nani buys a set of word magnets a few days later. She tells herself that it's to help Lilo with her reading and her spelling, but really, they're kind of for her, too.

They turn into a game leaving messages for each other, just because they can. 

*********

School hasn't been out of session for two weeks when trouble comes along. 

If it's not one thing, it's another. Now that routine has settled in and their lives are continuing towards the new normal, it's hard to tell exactly where their old lives really started to fade. Beyond the obvious, that is. 

Lilo continues taking pictures with her camera. Nani continues dropping them off to get developed. They go days on end without saying much beyond "hi", "good morning", and "good night". Lilo still comes to work with her at night; Nani still works two jobs to keep them afloat and wonders if she'll ever get to a point where she doesn't have to. 

David still comes around, when he can. Sometimes, he'll shoo Nani away from cooking or cleaning or laundry, and do it himself just to give her a break. 

Nani thinks Lilo probably avoids chores until he comes around. But he's got better luck at getting her to do things than Nani's ever been, so she lets it slide. Once, cleaning the kitchen turns into a water fight that causes a bigger mess than had originally been there. But Lilo is laughing (and winning because somehow she got control of the sprayer), so Nani decides she can let this go, too. 

She wonders if she's taking things too seriously. She asks David this when Lilo wanders outside to play and he tells her that it's okay if she does. 

"Life can't all be fun and games," he says. 

Nani rolls her eyes at him. "You're one to talk," she tells him. 

"It's a balance," David says. "You just haven't found the right one yet. But you will." 

*********

At some point, the state decides a visit from a social worker is in order. 

As fate would have it, the visit falls on a day where everything goes wrong. 

Nani is running late, the result of a co-worker not showing up until an hour after she was supposed to. Lilo was supposed to have waited for her after hula practice let out, but didn't. By the time Nani gets home, she's already nearly been hit by a car, and Lilo's nailed the door shut. 

The visit doesn't go well. At the end of it, the social worker hands Lilo a card and tells her to call him if she needs to.   
Then he leaves. 

It turns into a shouting match not long after. Lilo slams her bedroom door and Nani screams into a pillow for lack of any other way to deal with it. 

Later on, she feels guilty. They both say things they don't mean sometimes and she's probably worse about it than Lilo is, comments about rabbits aside. She makes a pizza even though they had it the night before, too, and takes a couple of slices upstairs. 

Lilo is sitting in the middle of her bed. She claims she isn't hungry, and Nani leaves the tray she's holding on the bedside table, and they talk. Really talk, for the first time in what feels like an age but has probably only been a couple of days. 

No, Nani doesn't want a rabbit more than a little sister. And Lilo says, I like you better as a sister, and Nani can't argue because she liked it better before, too. 

The lights flicker. Lilo runs to the window and sees what she claims is a shooting star. She pushes Nani out of the room and Nani pretends to collapse on her, biting back a laugh at being called a 'rotten sister' because Lilo's not even seven yet and she's not going to let it bother her. 

The shooting star is not, in fact, a shooting star. But neither of them know this. 

Nani opens Lilo's bedroom door just in time to hear her wishing for a friend. 

*********

This is how they end up at the animal shelter. 

This is also how they end up with Stitch. 

Stitch, who doesn't even look like a dog, but Lilo insists that he's just special and of course this is the one she wanted. Nani gives her two dollars to pay the adoption fee and they take Stitch home. 

It takes a while to get used to him. By then, Nani's back to working only one job because the other one decided they didn't need her anymore, so it's just the luau at nights. But she likes this better, because it means she can be home during the day and only ask the neighbors to watch Lilo when she has to run an errand. 

But that doesn't last long. Lilo brings Stitch with her to the luau one day and Nani overhears snippets of one-sided conversation that involve 'badness level' and how Stitch is overly bad for something his size. She wonders where Lilo comes up with it, but doesn't have time to think too much about it going from one table to the next, serving food, refilling drinks, and half-watching David trying not to burn himself with the fire knives on stage. 

And then everything goes downhill. Stitch goes after one of the patrons and Nani throws a pitcher of fruit punch at him that makes him turn on her and after that, well. 

After that, she's not working at all. 

Lilo asks as they get home if it's her fault. 

"Nah," Nani says. "The manager was a vampire. He kept trying to get me to join his legion of the undead." 

Lilo gapes at her for a moment as they walk into the house. "I knew it." 

Nani laughs. "Go get ready for bed." 

Lilo does, hopping up the stairs one at a time, with Stitch at her feet. 

*********  
The social worker (Cobra Bubbles, says Lilo, and giggles because she thinks it's a funny name, which it sort of is) knows within a day that Nani's lost her job. 

He gives her three days to find a new one. And gives Lilo three days to turn Stitch into a model citizen. 

Predictably, Lilo takes the task to heart and decides that if anything, Stitch will learn to be like Elvis Presley. Nani tries not to laugh too hard when Lilo explains this to her the night before the job search starts. 

"If you say so," she says. 

Lilo glares at her. "It will work," she says. "I know it." 

"I'm sure it will," Nani says. "We'll see." 

In the morning, Lilo and Stitch follow her around the island while she tries to find work. It's a slow process. Most of the places she goes to don't have anything open. She tries everywhere she can think of and by the time they go to what Lilo calls the tourist beach, Nani is starting to think she's out of options. 

The lifeguard job is her last hope, really. 

But that doesn't end well. 

This is on the third day. 

She gives up for the night and because it's not too late, and because David was there, they go out onto the water. 

This doesn't end well, either. 

*********  
That night, she lights the torches around the hammock and she and Lilo just sit there. 

Nani dreads the morning. Has dreaded this day for a long time, even though she's had the feeling in the back of her head for a while now that it's been a long time coming. She sees Stitch out of the corner of her eye, climbing up the stairs to where they are. He settles on the ground beneath the hammock and Nani can't help but be a little grateful for him, in spite of all the trouble.   
After all, she thinks, Lilo had wished for a friend. And Stitch has been exactly that; the sort of companion that a kid could only wish for, willing to go along with all of her little schemes, willing to play along. 

Willing to stay. 

Nani swallows past the lump in her throat long enough to start singing Aloha Oe, but she can't stop the tears that come. Lilo's hands rest in hers and the flowers in their palms float away on the wind. 

She doesn't know what to say. Doesn't know how to explain that she wasn't good enough to be a parent and that she'll fight whoever she has to because they're family, and that's what family does. 

Nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten. 

Lilo looks up at her but doesn't say anything about the tears. 

"I don't want to go," she says. And she sounds so miserable that Nani only cries harder and then Lilo is crying too. 

Nani wipes away Lilo's tears, but doesn't bother with her own. There'll be more of them, from both of them, she's sure of it, but at least she can offer this small comfort, now. 

Hours later, long after Lilo's fallen asleep in her arms, they're still outside and the torches are still going. 

Nani is still wide awake, staring at the stars. None of them move. It hits her then, and hard, that's been a year. 

A whole year, since everything changed. Since the two of them were thrust into this new life they didn't ask for, into this mess that it's suddenly become, into the unknown. 

She closes her eyes, briefly, sucks in a breath and exhales, slowly. 

And she prays for something to turn in their favor.


End file.
